Ben and Sam discuss Game Three of the Yankees-Orioles ALDS, the decision to pinch-hit for Alex Rodriguez, and A-Rod's future in New York, then talk about why the Stephen Strasburg debate won't go away.

Ben and Sam discuss Game Three of the Yankees-Orioles ALDS, the decision to pinch-hit for Alex Rodriguez, and A-Rod's future in New York, then talk about why the Stephen Strasburg debate won't go away.

Can the Cards even up their series behind Jaime Garcia before heading to D.C. for Game Three?

An eighth-inning rally, catalyzed by Pete Kozma’s fielding error and capped by pinch-hitter Tyler Moore’s two-run single, pushed the Nationals past the Cardinals in Sunday’s series opener. Can Davey Johnson’s team take a commanding 2-0 lead to the nation’s capital, or will Mike Matheny’s bunch bounce back and pull even? To try to answer those questions, here are the PECOTA odds and projected starting lineups for Game Two:

Does a look at Stephen Strasburg's PITCHf/x data reveal what might have caused the Nationals to shut him down early?

Tonight in New York is the “not” heard round the world: the game Stephen Strasburg would have been pitching if the Nationals hadn’t shut him down ahead of schedule, due to problems “mentally concentrating” that the Nationals blame on the level of media attention to the team’s plans to shut him down.

The Nationals have a strong lead in the NL East, so they are unlikely to miss his performance in one game, or for the rest of the regular season, very much. The larger issue surrounding Strasburg is the impact of losing him for the postseason. When the Nationals instituted their plan for Strasburg at the beginning of the season, it made a lot of sense for a young team with slim hopes of making the playoffs to protect one of their most valuable (and most fragile) players from injury. With the Nationals heavily favored to make the playoffs, though, some Nationals fans are likely to be disappointed if their team’s ace isn’t available for a single game of the postseason.

A look at the Stephen Strasburg situation in Washington and what the Nats could have done to avoid this media nightmare.

The countdown had been coming for months. It was just a matter of what would happen when it ended. We’re of course talking about the Washington Nationals’ declaration that they would shut down starting pitcher Stephen Strasburg at 160 innings pitched, something that the club had said they would be doing after the no. 1 draft pick and Scott Boras client had Tommy John surgery in 2010 to replace the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow.

Was Stephen Strasburg's velocity loss during his last start atypical? And if so, should we be worried?

ESPN Stats and Information published an article about Stephen Strasburg’s less-than-successful start on Tuesday that noted, “Strasburg’s velocity declined as his start went on. His heater averaged 96.6 MPH in the first two innings and 94.8 MPH after. “

If the Nationals had handled their ace's innings limit a little more like the Braves massaged Kris Medlen's, they might not be facing a Strasless October.

WARNING: Here there be hindsight.

We can’t say Mike Rizzo didn’t warn us. “There’s not going to be a whole lot of tinkering done,” he said. “We’re going to run him out there until his innings are done.” That was on February 20th, the earliest reference by Rizzo I can find to any specific plan for limiting Stephen Strasburg’s workload. We knew then that the Nats weren’t going to get creative: they were going to pitch Strasburg like any other starter until he was fresh out of innings. What we didn’t know then (and what we still don’t really know now), is when that would be. For months, everyone assumed Strasburg would go into storage after 160 innings. Why 160? As far as I can tell, the 160 meme began innocently enough, with this sentence from an mlb.com article by Bill Ladson on February 19th: “He is expected to throw 160 innings, the same number his teammate Jordan Zimmermann threw last year after coming off elbow reconstruction.” Expected by whom? The article didn’t say. Certainly not by the Nationals. But before long, 160 was ubiquitous, and usually attributed to the team. By the time Rizzo denied the number had come from him in an article at BP in April, it was already accepted as fact.

Ben and Sam discuss sabermetric managerial favorite Davey Johnson's impact on the Nationals, whether certain managers can make their players play better, and what the ideal relationship between a GM and manager might be.

Ben and Sam discuss sabermetric managerial favorite Davey Johnson's impact on the Nationals, whether certain managers can make their players play better, and what the ideal relationship between a GM and manager might be.

Episode 31: "Davey Johnson, How Much Managers Matter, and the Ideal GM-Manager Relationship"

Ben and Sam discuss the possibility that the Nationals might enter the playoffs without either Bryce Harper or Stephen Strasburg, then talk about how the White Sox have defied injuries yet again and proved the pre-season predictions wrong.

Ben and Sam discuss the possibility that the Nationals might enter the playoffs without either Bryce Harper or Stephen Strasburg, then talk about how the White Sox have defied injuries yet again and proved the pre-season predictions wrong.

The Rangers and Giants will probably both be playoff teams, but two other virtual locks for October, the Yankees and Nationals, made them look bad last night.

The Monday Takeaway
According to the playoff odds as of Tuesday morning, the Rangers are virtually certain to (99.5 percent) be dancing in October, and the Giants have more than a puncher’s chance (58.4 percent). Twelve hours earlier, the Yankees and Nationals, respectively, made them look like bona fide pretenders.

In the Bronx, Ryan Dempster retired the first six Yankees he faced, allowing the Rangers offense to build a 2-0 lead. Then, someone moved batting practice to the bottom of the third inning, and Nick Swisher highlighted the five-run session with a four-run missile into the second deck. The grand slam was Swisher’s 200th career home run, but it had nothing on this 441-foot, sixth-inning blast off the bat of Eric Chavez. And, as if those two bombs weren’t enough, Derek Lowe—fresh off the scrap heap and straight into mop-up duty—needed only 44 pitches to cruise through four innings and earn his first save since 2001. A game Texas led 2-0 ended 8-2 the other way, and the Yankees surged a half-game ahead in the race for the American League’s number-one seed.